Client backups

User data can be backed up by synchronising these data with the user's home directory on b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at.

Home directories on b.fluid are backed up daily and can be restored for at least one year by the admins. You can log in via ssh to b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at, using the credentials of your TU e-mail account, to see whether a home directory is already set up for you. If a home directory does not yet exist on b.fluid, please contact the admins (Thomas Loimer or Iris Fula) so they can create a home directory for you.

The synchronisation of the data involves two steps which are presented in detail further below,

setting up a rsync-command which synchronises the data on a desktop computer with the data on b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at, and
setting up a cron-job which invokes the rsync-command once an hour.

Setup instructions

Windows

In order to set up file synchronisation to b.fluid on your Windows client, your system needs an rsync client and a customised Windows synchronisation script. For details on how to proceed, please contact Iris Fula.

Common part for GNU/Linux, macOS, other Unix-like operating systems

On your desktop computer, please …

check that the program rsync is installed (should be installed by default on most systems)
save the script sync-to-host to a directory of our choice, for example ~/bin/; further below, the path to this script must be set accordingly
make the script sync-to-host executable (e.g., chmod +x ~/bin/sync-to-host)
copy the following lines to a terminal, adjusting TU_USER according to your TU username:

bash    # the commands below must be executed in the bash shell
export TU_USER=YOUR_TU_USERNAME

copy/paste the following lines to a terminal, adjusting ~/bin/sync-to-host to the actual path to the script,

export TARGET_HOST=b.fluid.tuwien.ac.at
export TARGET_DIR=$(hostname -s)

# run the backup script once (enter your TU password when asked to do so)
~/bin/sync-to-host ${TU_USER} ${TARGET_HOST} ${TARGET_DIR}

Please, edit the file ~/.config/sync-to-host/exclude.txt and set the patterns of files and directories which should be ignored by the backup. See man rsync under INCLUDE/EXCLUE PATTERN RULES for the syntax of these patterns.

The top of the file sync-to-host contains some comments on how the script works.

Automated backups on GNU/Linux

In order to set up a cron job for automated client backups on GNU/Linux systems, please copy and paste the following lines into the same terminal as above. Set SYNC_CMD according to the path where you saved the sync-to-host script:

export SYNC_CMD="${HOME}/bin/sync-to-host ${TU_USER} ${TARGET_HOST} ${TARGET_DIR}"
export SYNC_TIME="$((RANDOM % 60)) * * * *"
export CRON_ENTRY="${SYNC_TIME} ${SYNC_CMD}"
crontab -l 2>/dev/null | { cat; echo "${CRON_ENTRY}"; } | crontab -

Automated backups on macOS

In order to set up a launchd job for automated client backups on macOS systems, please copy and paste the following lines into a terminal:

#!/bin/bash
export BASENAME=at.ac.tuwien.fluid.b_backup-${USER}
export PLIST_PATH=${HOME}/Library/LaunchAgents/${BASENAME}.plist
cat > ${PLIST_PATH} <<EOF
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>${BASENAME}</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>${HOME}/bin/sync-to-host</string>
    <string>${TU_USER}</string>
    <string>${TARGET_HOST}</string>
    <string>${TARGET_DIR}</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key><true/>
  <key>StartInterval</key><integer>3600</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF
launchctl load ${PLIST_PATH}

Restoring data

Instructions for admins

In order to restore data from a backup, backups can be mounted to a user's home directory. Users can then access their data using an SFTP client (e.g. Nautilus on GNU/Linux, Cyberduck on macOS and WinSCP on Windows).

For example, in order to expose backup data from b.fluid to the user oswat, the following commands might be used:

export BACKUP_REPO=/mnt/backup/b/home/oswat.borg
export RESTORE_DIR=/home/oswat/restore-$(date -Idate)
mkdir ${RESTORE_DIR}
borg mount -o default_permissions,allow_other ${BACKUP_REPO} ${RESTORE_DIR}
ls ${RESTORE_DIR}

Note: As soon as users have restored their data, backups should be unmounted again:

umount ${RESTORE_DIR}